To Rule Them All
by Manchester
Summary: Xander and Andrew are working together during a vital mission- Hold it. "Xander", "Andrew", "together", and "vital mission"? This is not going to turn out well.


"Lessee, how about this-"

"Aw, _quit_ it, Xander! It's, like, the eighth time you've gone over everything!"

"No, Andrew. It's eight times I've just barely kept my temper under control about your latest little fiasco."

"That's not fair! I found the Amulet of Shakkat all by myself!"

"Okay, I'll give you that one. The whole New Council's been looking for one of the most powerful mystical lost doo-dads in existence the last month or so, and it was our very own Andrew Wells and none other, who stumbled by sheer blind luck across this little piece of extremely dangerous junk, which needs just the teensiest nudge to alter reality throughout the planet."

"You don't have to be so sarcastic about it, Xander."

"Just getting started here, fella. Now, where were we? Right, a certain member of a worldwide secret organization charged with protecting humanity from demons and other monsters accidentally finds that amulet - good job, kemo sabe! You'd have gotten this year's plaque for Best Employee at the awards banquet next fall, no question about it. We'd have even congratulated you for putting that glamour spell on the damn thing to shield it from all the Big Bads who're also searching high and low for it. Yep, you could've transformed it to look and feel like a zillion other things which might've occurred to you - a Coke bottle cap, a poker chip, a Cracker Jack lucky charm, but nooooo. Instead, during a flash of supreme genius, YOU HAD TO CHANGE IT INTO THAT! Why, Andrew, _why?_"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time, all right?"

"Nah, you just wanted your own personal replica of the One Ring prop from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movies! AAAARRRRGGGHHH!"

"Stop yelling at me, Xander! Anyway, it worked fine, up to, uh…"

"Up to the point when in a series of ridiculous events that I'm gonna schedule a lobotomy for in the near future so I won't ever again recollect how you tried to explain this to me, you lost the amulet, it wound up at a garage sale here, and the four guys who brought it took back to their Pasadena apartment something the equivalent of a thousand tons of magical dynamite concentrated in one place! Seeing how we're parked right outside, do you have any idea at all how thrilled this makes me? Do you? DO YOU?"

"You have to help, remember?"

"Grrr… This wasn't what I intended last Christmas, when I handed out the favor cards to everyone! Just because _you_ got a free pass for one time of Clean Up Andrew's Mess And Never Mention It Ever Again- Wait a second! Why are you calling it in now? You've screwed up often enough before, some of them about as bad then as now, but you got me here in California all the way from Scotland this time! What's the real reason, you asshole?"

"I, um, ah…"

"Talk, or I start using this car to test your new career as a speed bump."

"I finally found out who brought the ring, right before I called you!"

"Oh, crap. So, who's in the apartment? Wizards, magicians, some other kind of mojo-users?"

"Worse. Scientific geeks."

"Huh?"

"In alphabetical order, along with their titles and job descriptions, they're Sheldon Cooper, B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D., a theoretical physicist; Leonard Hofstadter, Ph.D., an experimental physicist; Rajesh Koothrappali, Ph.D., an astrophysicist; and Howard Wolowitz, an aerospace engineer."

"…so, basically, you're telling me an authentic example of enormous supernatural power is now in the hands of four very intelligent people, including one of them quite capable of thinking outside the box, which'll result in making it extremely easy for those guys to figure out magic is really real. Not to mention any of them are more than capable of saying, 'You know, it'd be cool to the max if we did this, just to see what happens!'"

"It might not be that bad-"

"ARE YOU CRAZY? The only good thing ever about Ethan Rayne is that there was just one of him! Now, you've got four of those maniacs! There's no way I wanna wake up tomorrow morning being three feet tall and having enough hair on my toes to braid it!"

"I don't think that could work, you becoming a hobbit. There's always the possibility of being altered into Aragorn, and you have to admit, a Liv Tyler lookalike might pop up also- URK!"

"Andy, ol' pal, comrade, buddy, if you'd paid a little more attention to the favor card I handed over, you might've noticed it didn't say anything about in fact keeping you alive during the whole disaster. Quit struggling, and I'll make this as painless as possible. Any last words?"

"The light's gone out!"

"That was actually kind of classy. I'll make sure to put this on your tombstone-"

"No - _gasp_ - the light in the apartment - _wheeze_ - turned off! They've gone to bed, and we can sneak into there and grab the ring! I can trace it since I was the one who set the glamour spell on it, so we can find it right away!"

"Sheesh, you better be right, Andrew, 'cause if this is some kind of trick, you're not gonna get out of that apartment except in a body bag."

"Ahhhhh… You didn't have to be so rough! Hey, wait! There's some stuff in the back seat we need to put on before we go in! Lemme get it-"

"Andrew, move over while you're pawing around back there! You've got your butt squashed against my face!"

"Sorry! Okay, here."

"It's the middle of the night! Why'd you just give me a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses and a suit- OH, COME ON!"

"No, it's perfect! If we get seen by them or anybody else, it'll really take them off guard at being robbed by the Men in Black!"

"Why am I hearing Danny Elfman theme music right now? Please don't tell me you thought up an actual neuralyzer!"

"Oh, yeah, thanks for reminding me- No, no! It might look just like the real thing, but I haven't gotten around to figuring exactly how to wipe away memories. The closest I've managed is to give someone an irresistible craving for butterscotch pecan pie with whipped cream."

"So _that's_ why Dawn gained twenty pounds in a week. You're a dead man when we get back, you know that? Listen, you point that thing at me one single time or even call me Ecks, and you'll find out first hand the meaning of an alien probe!"

* * *

"Huff, huff, huff…"

"Panties…"

"Huff, huff…uhhhhh. Yeah, that woman was really working them when we saw her head across the hallway. Good thing she didn't see us in the stairwell, even when we had to scramble to get inside the place she just left. By the way, Andrew, there's something I'd like to discuss with you-"

"My preciousssss…"

"Will you knock it off? Okay, so those guys in there were fighting too much to notice us, until you actually ran into the bedroom and grabbed the doohickey. I gotta say, you were also right about them being too surprised at the way we looked to come after us right away, so we nearly got out the door. On the other hand, you could've told me your big plan before grabbing my arm and yanking me into the elevator!"

"I didn't think about it until I heard them right at our heels! We'd have never made it down the stairs before they caught us, Xander. But, the intangibility spell I cast on us both meant when we were hidden from their sight for a second or two in the hallway, we could ghost right into the last place they'd ever look for us!"

"The spell's worn off now, right, so we're solid and heavy again?"

"Oh, don't worry. That was the hard part, and it'll take me a few more minutes to recharge so I can do it again and get us out of here. By then, those guys won't have any luck hunting for us, and we'll be home free. In the meantime, I can keep up without any trouble the silencing spell so nobody outside hears us."

"Good, because there's something else I'm really worried about. You _did_ notice the warning tape on all the elevator doors on our way up? Including this one? Plus, how it smells like an ashtray in here?"

"It can't be that dangerous, or it'd have been fixed right away!"

_Creeeeaaaaakkkk…_

"Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh."

_CRACK! SCREEEEECHHH! KA-WHOOSH!_

"_YAAAAHHHHHH!"_

* * *

Author's Note: I was inspired to write a crackfic after recently seeing the rerun of the episode of that television comedy entitled "The Precious Fragmentation." There was more than enough room to put in a backstory about the gang in Pasadena finding a very valuable movie prop at a garage sale, without knowing the true nature of this real-life magical object. Too, the vague ending of the episode just happened to lead to the open-ended conclusion of this story. Don't be all too concerned, though. Xander and Andrew survived, even if the one-eyed man gave serious consideration during their hospital stay over killing his fellow Sunnydale acquaintance whenever Andrew smugly mentioned they'd accomplished the mission in their very own version of Mount Doom.


End file.
